WILSON'S SNIPE. l8l 



The snipe seems to know just how to do it, 

 and actually tempts you to another trial. Is 

 anything more ravishing than the way he now 

 plays with you? Rejoicing in the breeze and 

 cleaving the swiftest gale faster than any other 

 thing that lives, the gay wanderer spins up wind 

 for a while, and then darts skyward as if on a 

 visit to the stars. Changing its mind as quickly 

 as the lightning, it darts now on one tack, 

 then on another, when, wheeling in long circling 

 sweep, back it comes like a boomerang. A few 

 more zigzag courses, as if to warn you against 

 being over-confident of its return, then up darts 

 the gray again, with sudden whirl falls into a 

 spiral line and, with sharp bill toward earth, down 

 it comes, pitches around backward, and alights 

 within two hundred yards, perhaps, of the place 

 where you last shot at it. Do you remember 

 how many times you chased that bird around 

 eighty acres of desolate bog before you finally 

 got within reach of him? And do you remember 

 how large you felt when his audacity finally 

 failed and he gyrated into the mud ? In the 

 gun-store where you showed that night the first 

 snipe of the season you were the hero of the hour, 



